Our hobbled economy reflects erosion of the cultural pillars that make possible a free society.

Monday, February 27, 2012by Star Parker

New Gallup polling shows the clearest picture yet of the great divide in the Republican Party that has been pushing former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum to the head of the class.

Behind Santorum's eight-point national lead over former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is a yawning gap in ideological support for the two candidates.

Conservative support for Santorum stands at 42 percent, compared to 24 percent for Romney. Among those who attend church frequently, support for Santorum is at 44 percent and for Romney 22 percent.

In the nation's heartland in the Midwest and South, Santorum leads by 19 and 8 points, respectively. It is only on the more liberal East and West coasts where the two are running neck and neck.

The poll also challenges conventional wisdom that Santorum is too conservative for the tastes of independent voters. He is leading Romney among Republican-leaning independents by 8 points.

With Santorum establishing himself as the candidate of choice among conservative and churchgoing Republicans, Romney's tactic, manifest in the debate in Arizona, is to try and discredit Santorum's credentials.

Having served two full terms in the U.S. Senate, Santorum cast enough party-line votes to expose him to the attacks he got in Arizona as being a business-as-usual party politician.

I don't believe this approach will dissuade those generally attracted to Santorum's traditional-values conservatism.

Even in the case of the most ideologically disposed candidate, politics will always be the art of the possible, particularly in a nation as big and complex as ours.

Consider, for instance, that the Supreme Court has recently agreed to hear a challenge to racial preferences in admissions policies at the University of Texas. There is a good chance that the court decision will overturn the Grutter v. Bollinger decision of 2003 in which racial preferences were upheld.

That decision, arguing that the nation needed to continue racial preferences in college admissions, was written by then-Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, who was President Ronald Reagan's first Supreme Court appointment.

Given Reagan's legacy as a conservative hero, it is hard to believe that his first Supreme Court appointment was a pro-choice moderate.

It is also worth recalling that shortly into his first term, Reagan convened a commission under the leadership of Alan Greenspan to fix Social Security. Rather than proposing bold changes in the structure of Social Security, the panel simply slapped temporary patches on a broken system, raising taxes and cutting benefits. By avoiding addressing the core structural problems of the system, the Greenspan commission allowed the problem to get worse, and bequeathed to us today an even more difficult challenge.

Do the O'Connor appointment and the Greenspan commission challenge Reagan's legacy as a great conservative leader?

Certainly not. Leadership is art. Even the most principled leaders must set priorities and choose which battles to fight. It is impossible to do it all.

A leader must identify the biggest, most immediate challenges and decide where compromises are unthinkable.

In the case of Reagan, this was cutting taxes, shrinking government and taking a hard stand internationally against communism and the Soviet Union.

The most immediate challenge for our nation today is understanding that our hobbled economy reflects erosion of the cultural pillars that make possible a free society.

When Reagan became president, 18 percent of American babies were born to unwed mothers. This has grown today to over 40 percent.

The way to stop runaway government is to understand that it reflects the collapse of core values, which define personal responsibility and form the glue that keeps American families intact.

There is no candidate today clearer on this than Santorum. It's why I think, despite the onslaught of attacks, he will not only not lose his attractiveness among conservative voters, but the attraction will strengthen.

Star Parker is president of the Center for Urban Renewal & Education and author of the re-released book Uncle Sam's Plantation.

This article, toward its close, makes the basic point that I think we all need to understand.

Most Freepers seem to think that we need to choose between social conservatism and fiscal conservatism.

No.

For one thing, we have seen again and again that without the support of BOTH these groups, no conservative will get enough votes to get elected. If millions of Evangelicals stay home, as they did in 2006, then the conservatives just can’t win.

But, even more important, this whole fiscal mess is the result of the breakdown in moral values in our culture. We used to be a Christian culture. Individuals might not be Christian, but they recognized that it is wrong to murder, steal, commit adultery, sleep around, and all the rest of it. Most families were intact. Now, most families are broken, and it gets worse and worse. That’s not only a moral crisis—it’s EXPENSIVE. Almost all those kids born in broken homes will go on welfare. Drug addicts will be unable to live productive lives. Abortion isn’t the answer. The more children you abort, the more welfare kids you end up with anyway.

That’s one reason why Democrats love immoral behavior. The more immoral behavior, the more people get thrown on their welfare plantation and vote for them, come hell or high water.

Santorum has pointed this out, although I don’t think the Newt fans who hate him were willing to listen. You have to fix the damned culture before you can fix the economy. Or, at least, you have to do both at once.

Ricky had better start studying Reagan a little more closely. His approach served him well in 1980 and although he was certainly a social conservative (explicitly banned homosexuals from serving in uniform, the Meese Commission prosecuted pornographers) he was adept at handling these things and knew where they fit in the big picture.

But, even more important, this whole fiscal mess is the result of the breakdown in moral values in our culture. We used to be a Christian culture. Individuals might not be Christian, but they recognized that it is wrong to murder, steal, commit adultery, sleep around, and all the rest of it. Most families were intact. Now, most families are broken, and it gets worse and worse.

That's because we have a government that pays for it. If you end the payments, those people will either have to sober up and get a job... or they *DIE* from privation.

That's an extreme example of how small-government individualists would handle the situation.

Whereas a more statist individual will press for a large government to police it's citizenry and tell/force them to live the federal government's way.

Both are working toward the same goal; it's the methods that are different. The individualist is not willing to live under anyone's yolk; whereas the statist isn't willing to let anyone suffer if they haven't yet been given the proper guidance.

As for those that turn to crime, that’s what the police and the 2nd Amendment are for. Shoot the b@st@rds.

The individualist gets to the same point without the overwhelming and self-sustaining government. They allow for individuals to freely associate in clubs/groups/organizations/churches/etc to deal with issues that need resolving. And only after being confronted with failure would they then turn to the lowest level of government capable of dealing with the situation.

But, even more important, this whole fiscal mess is the result of the breakdown in moral values in our culture.

You've got it backwards.

The breakdown in moral values in our culture has been cultivated by fiscally out-of-control government. GOVERNMENT forces the path for immorality to thrive. Its forced charity of welfare and food stamp programs creates a class of slothful, ignorant people. Our horrific education system, GOVERNMENT, has removed from American children as much of the Christian and Judeo-Christian ethic from history as possible, and as for national pride -- it is non-existent here. Today's schools are creating "global citizens." It's disgusting and immoral.

GOVERNMENT punishes landlords who'd rather not rent to the unmarried couple or the openly homosexual couple. GOVERNMENT punishes people for exercising their God-given right to peacefully reject declared and open homosexuality in their children's schools, their kids Scout troops -- moral decline hasn't enabled that, GOVERNMENT DID!

We are the majority. The moral breakdowns in our culture are happenign because GOVERNMENT has removed from us our right to live morally, and part of living morally is to reject certain things so they have to go somewhere else. Immorality causes bad government -- the SOLUTION is to take government as much out of the equation as possible. Our Founders understood that.

Gingrich understand the reform needed. Anyone who reads Santorum's website, and read's Newt's, can see it.

Godspeed Newt Gingrich.

17
posted on 03/16/2012 8:02:58 PM PDT
by Finny
("The rules are made for people who aren't willing to make up their own." -- C. Yeager)

The breakdown in moral values in our culture has been cultivated by fiscally out-of-control government.

No, Cicero's got it exactly right. Only a society of immoral men can produce a fiscally out-of-control government. Of course, it does become a feed-back loop at some point because immoral men love nothing more than enticing other men to be immoral like them. But the mass of people has to become corrupt and lazy to tolerate such immorality among its leaders without taking action.

We are about to find out if America has become so corrupt and lazy that we can't even save ourselves from suicide. We're doing the civilizational equivalent of ODing.

19
posted on 03/16/2012 9:06:39 PM PDT
by Antoninus
(The less virtuous a people, the greater its need for laws.)

Just look at Czarist Russia and their transition to the USSR. They were a moral people, G-d fearing and religious. Then the communists took over, for the noblest of intentions... and created the ultimate ‘nanny-state’.

Within a generation, alcoholism... abortion...and all sorts of vices were rampant. Abortion, in particular, became so prevalent that it was more acceptable to get one afterwards than it was to just go and get a pack of condoms.

Just a generation after the formation of a large and controlling superstate.

And you want a large and controlling superstate... with the noblest of intentions. But we know where good intentions lead us.

What truly makes people moral is having to face life on one’s own two feet. That, and organized religion (mind you, not government working to enforce theological doctrines).

For that begets personal responsibility, the foundation of society. Only when someone can trust that another will do what they say... can a society exist.

Such a pulblised set of "Free Republic Posting Guidelines" would also demonstrate legal "good faith" and "due diligence" with respect to outside parties who might wish to criticize Free Republic for (alleged) violations of internet copyright protection issues ...

I don’t know any Santorum supporters and I voted for him in NH simply by the process of elimination, more as a protest vote than anything else. I did the same for Duncan Hunter 4 years ago, but sadly he didn’t take off.

Well said, gogogodz. VERY WELL SAID, better than I said it. THANK YOU. Cicero, Antonius, please see the truth: government is not the answer to our moral malaise, it is the CAUSE of it.

Government -- not our fellow citizens, not popular opinion, not our neighbors, but GOVERNMENT prevents us from saying prayers in schools outlawing abortion in our states, rejecting the push for open homosexuality in our communities, etc. Our neighbors don't prevent us from living morally, GOVERNMENT DOES. If not for government, America would be a much more moral nation, and frankly, that you think so LOWLY of your fellow Americans is evidence of the kind of pride that I think is unbecoming in a Christian.

Let's take VOTE FRAUD for an example. Let's say people in a certain state said, "To hell with the ruling that says we can't require IDs to vote. We're doing it anyway." Most Americans, and you know in your heart this is true, would say, "More power to you! Hooray! We have to show IDs to cash a check or to rent a movie, it's perfectly reasonable to check IDs to vote." MOST AMERICANS think that way.

But GOVERNMENT, deeming it "immoral" to check IDs of voters because it might "disenfranchise minorities," would PUNISH us from doing the right and moral thing. Not our fellow citizens, not Godly morality, but THE GOVERNMENT. Remember that charity is a major MAJOR factor of Christian morality. The GOVERNMENT has nearly removed that major factor from us and transferred it to food stamps and welfare, which enable immorality, whereas Christian charity, true righteous Christian charity, guides people toward morality and rewards them for being morally righteous. SANTORUM, good as he is, TOTALLY misses this, as he fought valiantly to PREVENT CUTS FROM THE FOODSTAMP PROGRAM. Santorum thinks Government is a key factor in making people "moral." He is wrong; government is a key factor in making people immoral.

It is why I say, and pray: Godspeed Newt Gingrich.

26
posted on 03/17/2012 9:42:40 AM PDT
by Finny
("The rules are made for people who aren't willing to make up their own." -- C. Yeager)

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